On 19/09/2025 18:51, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 2025-09-19 10:52 a.m., Christian Liendo via cctalk wrote:
I think without the 6502 and the consumer machines based on them, that
wouldn't have happened or it would have taken longer.
Here I think the 6800 had a big impact as the 65xx was to pin and
timing compatible device. With that memory model Apple and others
developed the video cycle on first phase of the clock and ram access
on the second half. Mostek's 4K dram was also a major factor. Two
hardware simplifications over chips using a different bus cycle.
Ben.
Surely the real impact of the 6502 was in education. So I believe in the
USA lots of schools had Apple II machines , whereas in the UK we had the
BBC Micro. So responsible for introducing many to computing and
programming.
In rather a tenuous way, the BBC might also be considered to be a parent
of most every mobile phone, via the ARM chip. In order to cram the logic
required into the BBC B Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber used an
Uncommitted Logic Array , a chip which was a pre-cursor to the CPLD and
FPGA. It was basically a chip of logic gates where the functionality was
implemented in the "last layer". In order to design this layer Wilson
and Furber wrote a basic program.
.. so when they came to develop the the Archimedes they used High Level
Design languages to design the first ARM chips, the great grandchildren
of are in every mobile phone....
Dave
